International Edition of Tasty Travels: Thailand--Part 2 Trang

9.4.10

Restaurant: Tam Aloud

The phrase means, "Everything you find you can see, hear, taste... you can find everything here". Or in other words, it might also mean, "you can do everything here. "Aloud" means "around here". And "Tam" means "do everything together".

I distinctly remember sitting in this restaurant reminscing about the first time I had vietnamese (rice paper) wraps in a vietnamese restaurant in Davis, CA. It sucked! Because I was so hungry that I was angry I had ordered it because it required me to "cook my own food"--in the sense that you have to soak the rice paper in hot/luke warm water to soften it up before loading it up with goodness.

I revisited this experience in Thailand. The looks of this restaurant was very modern. There's a version of "Rosie the Riveter" on the wall saying "You can do it". And next to that is a very inspiring poster about winning. I can only imagine what was the history of this little restaurant that looked like a house.

9.5.10 [no name] THE Local Seafood Place

After our day trip to Trang beach, we had worked up an appetite from eating nothing but peanuts and drinking from juice boxes. On our way to the beach, we had gotten directions from a kind restaurateur in exchange for returning for lunch. 

We pull up to the restaurant and they placed us at a nice table on the beachfront.  After we finished ordering, the kind restaurateur came over again to warn us of the oncoming rainstorm. We were advised to take our fruit drinks and beer to the covered tables across the street.

And then came the food: Curry soft shelled crab--they have way of tossing the crab with onions and green onions and a curry sauce with coconut milk, crab fried rice, unnamed fried fish, steamed octopus, and we ate a type of snails that I will never know the name of.

 Curry Soft Shell Crab

The fried fish above had the consistency of a flounder. It was deep fried and covered with a sweet chili sauce. I might have had about four or five fried fish while in Thailand, and they were all good!! They have a way of lightly frying the fish, and the meat is still moist. Oh! And how could I forget the steamed water prawns! They're in the background... iSpy.

Finally, I leave you with a shot of the rainstorm--the backdrop of one of the best meals we had in Trang.

 

9.6.10 dinner at home from the Trang market

A lot of this trip was learning about Thai culture. And for me, it was the little things like just eating a meal at home. We made a pot of rice at home. But when the refrigerator is the size of say a mini fridge you might find in a cute little loft in the city, we are forced to venture out and buy dinner. My brother-in-law explains that because of the humidity and for sanitation/health reasons, it's customary not to store a lot of food in the house, so he pops out to the daily market to pick up about five to six different tapas (small plates) for dinner.

Here's a picture of the local fruits--I remember my brother-in-law, P telling me about the bananas. They have nicknames. One is called a "thumb" banana (lost in translation?) because it's shaped like a thumb. It's got a more dense consistency. The other is a "fingerling" banana and it's because it's more slender... like a finger!

 

This grilled fish was firm and meaty like a salmon or a mackerel. It had that charbroiled taste that fish might have from being cooked on an open grill in the market. I could only imagine--it wasn't until on our return trip and last day in Trang that we visited the market. 

(Below) This is my favorite dish! It was a curry cake steam-wrapped in a banana leaf! I refer to this chinese dish often--it is comparable to a chinese steamed egg. It's filled with that wonderful curry flavor. Be careful because the spicy level on this dish is red alarm hot! Coupled with some rice, it was perfect!

Finally, dessert!! Again, wrapped in banana leaf was a coconut sticky rice dessert with a sweet sugary paste in the center. I'm pretty sure I had two of these that night!

9.8.10 The Balcony Cafe

I felt like I had stepped in to a small neighborhood cafe in San Francisco. If you are like me, you grew up in the Sunset district in San Francisco, you should be familiar with the term "ABC". That means "American Born Chinese"--that's what I am! There's a bit of a subculture there.

I grew up where there are restaurants that appear to be Chinese, but really it's American food made Chinese style. There's one restaurant in my neighborhood that serves dishes such as "Spaghetti with XO sauce" or one of my favorites "Black Pepper Pork Chop".  What's an XO sauce? It's not the ordinary Italian sauce that you're thinking should go with spaghetti--it's more of a sweet tomato ketchup based sauce--I think my dad grew up with such kinds of sauces (haha).

Back to Thailand...

After our day visit to the University of Trang campus, we went to lunch at a local cafe in town. It had a beautiful atrium patio in the center with small potted plants and stone statues of children.  Plastered on the wall were cute colorful modern paintings and there were couches in the area by the coffee bar and cake display window.

After reading through the descriptions of what seemed to be about 50 different dishes (Tio, it reminds me of that restaurant we nicknamed 101 dishes!)... I finally settled on what seemed like the safest bet. It sounded like a chow fun Thai style. I was excited!

In the end, I was happy for the large blended fruit drinks. My aunt and I opted for the Thai iced coffee.

I wasn't so happy when I tasted my faux chow fun (Thai style).  [Below] Remember that ketchupy tasting sauce that I was describing earlier, well this was yet another version of that. In the end, I found myself wanting what everyone else ordered. Especially, one of my favorite, the flat noodles stir-fried with ground pork and basil. [Above] I'm not sure who ordered it but also on the table was a stir fried noodle dish that was saucy underneath and topped with deep-fried noodles--it looked and tasted delicious!

And that was Trang! Upcoming: The last entry to the Thailand series: Phuket!